William L. Holahan

Spatial monopolistic competition versus spatial monopoly

Abstract This paper compares the equilibrium firm output, market area, price of services, and level of net benefits in monopolistically competitive spatial equilibrium versus the multiplant monopolists spatial equilibrium. Through a computer simulation, it is found that the welfare comparisons depend on population density—the monopolists equilibrium is superior to the monopolistically competitive equilibrium in high density areas and vice versa, contrary to traditional economic theory in which distance is assumed costless.

Can Free-Market Environmentalism Be Mainstream? Teachers' Attitudes about Economic Perspectives on the Environment.

lsewhere in this issue of The Social E Studies Anderson and Shaw (2000) make a compelling case that freemarket evironmentalism is gaining widespread support among a growing number of economists. But is it likely to gain support among teachers? For several reasons, teachers might object to the analysis. First, the institution in which most teachers work-the public schools -is not very market oriented. The culture of the public schools tends to resist market-oriented solutions:

Teaching the Economics of Non-renewable Resources to Undergraduates

Harold Hotellings path-breaking article in 1931 used higher mathematics to explain the economics of non-renewable resources. In that article, Hotelling asserted that conventional static models were inadequate to illustrate his ideas, and presumably he would have extended that opinion to the many technical papers that his work spawned. The purpose of this paper is to show how to extend the conventional static model to enable instructors of economics to present to undergraduates at least some of the ideas of Hotelling and later research economists. By making such presentations, these introductory courses can make a great improvement in economic understanding at precisely the time in our history that energy policy in general, and oil dependence in particular, are front-page news.